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Money is the textbook case of social construction. Why would anyone actually exchange real goods and services for a piece of paper, a token coin or an electronic blip? Clearly, money is a social construction that human beings create through their mutual t ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does a common currency and monetary policy require the existence of a political community? Or is money merely an arbitrary technical means to lubricate market exchanges? This paper seeks to answer these questions in the context of the larger ¬no-demos discussion of the European Union (EU). Some analysts have blamed the presumed absence of a demos, or a community with sufficient solidarity to accept the distributional implications of policy-making, for legitimacy problems and a democratic deficit in EU governance. The paper takes on this claim from multiple angels. First of all, it examines the distributional implications of a common monetary policy to ascertain the level of solidarity necessary for maintaining legitimacy. Moreover, the paper critiques the often primordial definition that associates a demos exclusively with the nation. This conceptualization leads to a zero-sum understanding of collective identities that cannot capture the interaction of multiple and complex identities. Instead, the paper emphasizes the constructed nature of community and characterizes EU governance as a network of several co-existing demoi. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of the euro and the operation of the European Central Bank (ECB) have been widely criticized as undemocratic in large portions of the literature on European Monetary Union. Like the European Union itself, the ECB is alleged to suffer from a "democratic deficit." Among the criticisms are the missing link between European voters and central bankers, the lack of accountability, the ECB's independence from democratically elected politicians, the secrecy of the monetary policy-making process and the lack of the ECB's embeddedness in national or European civil society. This paper examines these arguments from a macro-historical perspective. In particular, I compare founding of European Monetary Union with the formation of national currencies and with the governance of national money prior to the euro. I argue that European Monetary Union is a much more legitimate form of monetary governance under conditions of globalization than is widely assumed. Most importantly, the "democratic deficit" argument ignores the embeddedness of monetary policy in the broader international environment and misses the tensions that exist between participatory democracy and money's existence as a form of trust. Instead of participatory criteria, the paper argues to use efficiency, accountability and a functioning agent-guardian relationship as the key measures of the ECB's legitimacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from a pervasive puzzle that characterizes the use of all money: Why would anyone actually exchange real goods and services for a piece of paper, a token coin or an electronic blip? I argue that market participants accept money in an exchange based on the trust that others will do exactly the same. While it is the basis of any existing monetary order, trust becomes obviously particularly relevant in the case of a newly created currency, such as the euro. In addition to being new, the euro is also a supra-national currency, and, therefore, lacks some of the political and cultural factors that help facilitate trust in single nation states. How can we conceptualize the formation of trust in the euro under these circumstances? The paper examines the evolution of trust along two dimensions, those of horizontal and of vertical trust. Horizontal trust gets established through mimesis and identity. Vertical trust relies on institutional mechanisms, in particular the interaction between a specifically assigned agent of monetary trust (the European Central Bank) and guardians of trust (other political actors as well societal players). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the widely-held assumptions in the prevailing political economy literature, national and international monetary governance structures are currently undergoing a process of fundamental and revolutionary change. Developments such as the introduction of the euro in the European Union, increasing dollarization in various parts of the world, or the evolution of electronic money seem to call into question the conventional relationship between nation state and territorial monetary governance. The new monetary geography appears to be globalized or deterritorialized and governance of money is radically changing. This paper seeks to develop an alternative conceptualization of these monetary transformation processes. While the empirical facts of a shifting monetary landscape are not in dispute, I argue that the current developments of globalization and deterritorialization are quite consistent and comparable with other historical processes of change in monetary governance. The often assumed distinction between a national and a post-national monetary landscape is exaggerated. Starting from a definition of money as a social relation ? instead of a material or economic category ? the paper adopts a macro-historical perspective and compares four historical episodes of monetary transformation: the shift from a barter to a money economy, the development of financial capitalism during the early stages of modernity, the process of national monetary unification during the nineteenth century and the current deterritorialization processes. Applying an agency-structure framework, the paper uncovers similarities across these cases in the way the interaction between politics and markets has repeatedly molded monetary governance. In particular, the paper interprets current transformation processes as part of a modernization process that resulted in greater levels of abstraction in all spheres of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an analysis on contemporary processes in the monetary sphere from a historical perspective. Comparison between contemporary processes and monetary transformations; Changes in monetary governance; Role of money as a social relation; Relationship of money markets and states; Contradictions in the evolution of money.

This paper assesses the relationship between money, collective identity, and European integration. The recent move of the European Union (EU) toward a common currency ? the euro ? seems to contradict the conventional ?one nation/one money? assumption about the association between states, territory and money creation. The paper argues that ? if viewed from a broad macro-historical perspective ? the process of European monetary unification is not as exceptional and unique as it is often made out to be. I argue that money is, first and foremost, a social relation. This definition implies that collective identity plays some role in the creation and transformation of monetary systems. However, the key identity aspect at stake is not an affective relationship between citizens and country, but rather a relationship of trust. During the process of modernization, trust has become rather abstract and institutionalized. To support a modern relationship of trust, identity does not have to rest on deep affective feelings of belonging. Diffuse identity, based on utilitarian or contractual factors and as part of evolving hybrid identity structures, is sufficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a critical issue for the legitimacy of European Monetary Union, namely the embeddedness of European monetary policy-making in the European public sphere. Sharing a supra-national currency, there is no “natural” public sphere through w ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is Europe's monetary union based on democratic principles or does it suffer from a "democratic deficit"? Is it possible to govern a supra-national money democratically? This paper examines the conceptual foundations of the "democratic deficit" argument. It addresses three assumptions made in this context: the "genuine preferences argument," the "majority principle," and the "no demos thesis." I argue that the European Monetary union is a more legitimate form of monetary governance than the "democratic deficit" argument often asserts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1994 China has pegged its currency, the renminbi, to the U.S. dollar. China has stuck to the peg with little deviation despite strong US pressure for revaluation in the last few years. Why has the US been unable to prevail over China on its exchange rate policy? What, if anything, will bring about a more flexible Chinese exchange rate regime? We argue that like all other governments, both the American and the Chinese governments try to avoid domestic adjustment and attempt to impose domestic adjustment on their partner countries in the international monetary system. We focus our attention on the international and domestic politics of China?s exchange rate policy. We argue that China?s policy is not only rooted in the international monetary power balance, but also in its domestic political and economic circumstances. We will compare this case with similar historical cases, such as the export-led growth strategy of Germany and Japan during the Bretton Woods years and that of South Korea and Taiwan during the 1970s and 80s. Applying these comparative insights, we predict that China will shift away from its dollar peg only once the government runs out of the option to sterilize its interventions and the domestic costs (i.e. inflation) of the fixed exchange rate outweigh its benefits (e.g. trade advantages, protection of the domestic banking sector and political prestige). Accordingly, the end of the pegged renminbi-dollar exchange rate will resemble the collapse of the Bretton Woods System, when Germany simply abandoned the system in order to avoid the import of inflation. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]